Q&A: Exploring a N.J. psychologist's role in the dark history of forced sterilization

Amber Esping, an assistant professor of educational psychology at Texas Christian University, is co-author with Jonathan Plucker of âIntelligence 101.â

Forced sterilizations bring to mind totalitarian societies and concentration camps. But in the early decades of the 20th century, 30 states — including New York, Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Delaware — had compulsory sterilization laws for people deemed mentally unfit. It was part of the eugenics movement of the period, which believed that intelligence and overall mental fitness were largely hereditary.

Controlling who could reproduce was considered a benefit for society. The unfit could include people with low IQs, physical disabilities, teen moms, and rape and incest victims. Anyone on the fringes of society — poor, minority, disabled — was at risk of sterilization. A University of Vermont study found that 60,000 men and women had been sterilized in the United States as a result of these programs. North Carolina is now considering reparations for victims of its state program, which was not shut down until 1974.

New Jersey did not perform state-sanctioned sterilizations. But starting in 1908, psychologist Henry H. Goddard, at the Vineland Training School for the mentally disabled, promoted the intelligence testing and analysis that buttressed eugenics. Amber Esping, an assistant professor of educational psychology at Texas Christian University, is co-author with Jonathan Plucker of “Intelligence 101,” due out next year. She spoke with editorial writer Linda Ocasio.

Q. What is Henry Goddard’s significance to the eugenics movement?

A. He brought the first intelligence tests from Europe. There had been many attempts to measure intelligence in the United States, but none had succeeded. Before that, some researchers felt they could tell by looking at someone whether he was a mental defective or not. Goddard wanted something scientific. In 1908, he got hold of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale from France, brought it over and translated it. He used it with his students in Vineland, with the goal of helping them. He made many mistakes, but at the root, he thought he could help them. He also was instrumental in getting the first special education law introduced in the United States. He thought the feeble-minded — the historical term for intellectual disability — deserved a free public education.

Q. How was the test used?

A. The Binet-Simon was used to classify people with mental defects, by comparing their mental age with their actual age. If you scored three years younger than your real age, you were classified as a mental defective. Classifications of low intelligence in those days used terms we would consider offensive today: imbecile, idiot and moron. Goddard coined the term “moron,” based on the Greek word for fool. Before that, “feeble-minded” was the catch-all term for any mental defective. Moron was the highest class of mental defective. This classification system seemed to him to be very precise and scientific.

Q. Didn’t others use his work to further their own political ends?

A. The idea that intelligence was entirely inherited from parents was widely accepted. Goddard wasn’t the first or the worst. The American Eugenics Society was already established. Charles Davenport was the mover and shaker in that organization. He believed the feeble-minded tend to breed twice as fast as others, and our national intelligence would become lower as a result. The Immigration Restriction League was also concerned about the immigrants arriving from 1890 on. They considered these southern and eastern Europeans “different” from previous immigrants, and worried about all these people coming in and breeding. Even Alexander Graham Bell was part of a eugenics group. Charles Darwin said, “Excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” Eugenics was in the air and Goddard was riding the wave, one of many eugenicists discussing intelligence and his concern for the future of the United States.

Q. Did Goddard have regrets about his work?

A. In his 1927 (article) “What is a Moron?” Goddard made it clear he made some mistakes. For example, he discovered that 45 percent of World War I recruits came up “feeble-minded” on group intelligence tests designed to screen soldiers. He realized something must be wrong. Goddard had also been invited to screen immigrants with the Binet test at Ellis Island, and the immigrants also did horribly. For the first time, he acknowledged the importance of environment in shaping intelligence test score. For example, the Ellis Island immigrants couldn’t draw a picture from memory, one of the questions on the test. Goddard understood that this was probably because some of them had never held a pencil before. So he revised the test.

Q. How did the Nazis exploit his work?

A. In 1933, the Nazis reprinted the German translation of his 1912 book, “The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness.” In it, Goddard traced the family lines of a woman at Vineland back to a Revolutionary War soldier. The soldier had an affair with a feeble-minded tavern girl, but later married a Quaker girl from a good family. The man had two sons, one with a rich and happy Quaker family. The illegitimate son led to generations of supposedly feeble-minded people. The book didn’t take into account societal and environmental factors. Goddard suggested segregating the feeble-minded in colonies, for their benefit and ours. But by 1927, in an article in Scientific Monthly, he disavowed the idea. The Nazis used it to justify what they were doing in the years leading up to the Holocaust. Goddard didn’t see that coming. A Jewish philanthropist funded the Kallikak book. It was a very sad end to his life.

Q. A new study finds that intelligence is largely rooted in the genes. Isn’t that the same slippery slope that fueled eugenics?

A. No, this is not eugenics. There is very good evidence from research in behavioral genetics that intelligence is determined, in part, by genetics. Probably the best estimate right now, based on lots of studies, is 50 percent.

Researchers who believe this also emphasize the importance of a rich environment and education in ultimately determining a person’s IQ. It is important to emphasize also that the role genetics plays is not really understood. It is certain, however, that Goddard got it wrong. There is no single gene for human intelligence. There are certainly many genes at work, and their function is most definitely influenced by the environment they encounter.